


Ready, Always Ready (to run)

by IAmANonnieMouse



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M, POV Arthur, Pining, Pre-Slash, these lovesick fools
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 13:13:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10831989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IAmANonnieMouse/pseuds/IAmANonnieMouse
Summary: Arthur knew a feral cat once. It lived in his childhood neighborhood, prowling the streets with restless intensity, strutting with a confidence that belied its mangy frame.Eames is like a feral cat.





	Ready, Always Ready (to run)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Somedrunkpirate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Somedrunkpirate/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Wanted: Found, not lost](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10762224) by [Somedrunkpirate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Somedrunkpirate/pseuds/Somedrunkpirate). 



> For somedrunkpirate, Arthur's POV for her lovely fic [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10762224) that she gifted me with last week. You have finals now, darling, so have a gift in return!

Arthur knew a feral cat once. It lived in his childhood neighborhood, prowling the streets with restless intensity, strutting with a confidence that belied its mangy frame. If there’s anything Arthur remembers from his youth, it’s this:

Arthur, seated on the floor, watching the cat through the glass pane of the front door. The cat, perched on the stair, lapping at the bowl of milk that is there, body tense, ears pricked, ready, always ready to run.

Eames is like a feral cat.

He moves through jobs like the cat had prowled through Arthur’s neighborhood, cloaked in an unwavering façade of British charm, painstakingly hiding the real Eames underneath. He skirts around the edges of Arthur’s existence, lapping at the milk that Arthur leaves out for him, but never coming closer, frustratingly ready, always ready to run.

After every job, when they separate, Arthur leaves a clue, careful and precise. He packs his bag. He boards his plane. And he lets himself think, just once, _Maybe this time._

But Eames never shows.

~+~+~

There’s this job.

It’s always a job, at the end of the day. But—there’s this job.

There’s also a sniper. There’s a sniper who almost shoots Eames, but doesn’t because Arthur is a careful, precise, strategic point man—except when Eames is involved. There’s a sniper who almost shoots Eames but grazes Arthur’s arm instead and ruins his shirt.

If the bullet had been a little more to the left, or if Arthur had been a little slower in pushing Eames out of the way, he could have died.

But he didn’t. That’s what he keeps reminding himself.

It’s mostly working. The whiskey he’s drinking helps, a bit.

Eames finds him, like he always does, except when Arthur wants him most. He orders a drink, and then another, and they sit in silence as the rest of the world moves around them.

“Not that I don’t appreciate it, darling,” Eames says much later, when they’re both moving more sluggishly and the world is starting to blur on the edges like a dream on a bad batch of Somnacin. “But I’d rather not be remembered as ‘That bloke who got Arthur killed.’”

And Arthur blames his response on the alcohol, and the leftover adrenaline from his stupid, _stupid_ reaction this afternoon.

“Eames,” he slurs, “I have no one. No one has me. So what does it even matter?”

Eames throws back his drink, a cat gulping from the bowl of milk on the stair who can’t allow himself to come any closer. Arthur wonders if he’ll always be watching, and waiting.

~+~+~

Arthur is in Sydney. Eames is not.

Eames is tied up in a shithole of a job with a junky of an architect and an extractor addicted to nicotine. Arthur thinks he’s an idiot, but then Arthur’s always had a weakness for idiots.

And if Arthur monitors the entire job from his seat on his couch, well—nobody has to know.

~+~+~

If there’s anything Arthur remembers from his youth, it’s this:

Arthur, sitting outside in the yard, playing with toys or eating grass or doing whatever it is that nine-year-old kids do when they’re outside. The feral cat approaching, drinking its milk, ears pricked, body tense. Ready, always ready to run.

The cat padding away from the milk and veering to the side, towards Arthur in the yard. Arthur pausing in whatever it is he’s doing, watching the cat approach. Waiting. Wanting.

And the cat slowly tiptoeing over, slowly, so slowly. Tail tense, whiskers twitching. Moving silently, warily, until, finally, it’s standing at Arthur’s side, quietly nosing at Arthur’s hand.

And Arthur, turning his hand, running his fingers through its soft fur. The quiet peacefulness of the moment—until Arthur’s father comes out and scares it away.

If he closes his eyes, he can still feel the fur sliding between his fingers.

~+~+~

Arthur’s phone rings. It’s his personal phone, the one that only four people in the world knew—and one of them is dead.

“Who are you and how did you get this number?” he demands.

Nothing comes through except the sounds of another person’s breath.

Arthur’s throat is suddenly very dry.

“Eames?” he asks, afraid to hope.

“Yes, darling, it’s me.”

Arthur can’t suppress his quiet chuckle, his concession to his relief.

Soft fur, quiet peacefulness.

“Are you ready to join me?” Arthur asks.

Eames is quiet for a heart-stopping moment, and Arthur’s thumb is already hovering over the button to disconnect the call, to open up that bottle of wine that’s waiting for him.

Ready, always ready to run.

He hears Eames inhale deeply. “Yes,” Eames says, simple as that.

Arthur smiles. If he closes his eyes, he can still feel the fur sliding through his fingers.

**Author's Note:**

> I am on [Tumblr.](http://iamanonniemouse.tumblr.com/)


End file.
